Tuesday TV: The Earlier ‘Gilded Age’

The one percent were doing pretty well 120 years ago in the United States as well. According to the sobering look back “The Gilded Age” on “American Experience” (PBS, 9 p.m., check local listings), the richest 4,000 families had nearly as much wealth as the country’s other 11.6 million families combined.

The divide between rich and poor in the age of the Vanderbilt, Morgan and Carnegies will raise some questions about where things are going now. “For me, what’s so obvious is that we haven’t solved the issues that arose so clearly during the Gilded Age and they’re with us today, which is who is the government for? Is government for the people, or is government for the corporations?” Nell Irvin Painter, one of the historians in the film told reporters at the TV Critics Association winter press tour. If change is going to come, she says, it’s going to have to come from people on the bottom, she says.

The “Portlandia” star devises a special particularly suited to one group of musicians, who fill the audience: “Fred Armisen: Standup for Drummers” (Netflix, streaming).

The two are made for television: Bethenny Frankel has been in a handful of shows, and Fredrik Eklund is from “Million Dollar Home Los Angeles.” On the new “Bethenny & Fredrik” (Bravo, 10 and 10:30 p.m.) they team up to flip houses and argue quite a lot.

Some familiar faces are recruited to become clowns on “Baskets” (FX, 10 p.m.) and Eddie drinks a little too much as the family rodeo starts.

I’m still annoyed by Sunday’s episode, but here’s another “This is Us” (NBC, 9 p.m.), this one told from the point of view of the family car.